Meditations On My Own Anality

In November, I'll be starting a graduate program in creative writing, and the other day, I had to buy a book that has been assigned for reading before the semester begins.

Of course, this book was only available in hardcover. And of course, I was too impatient to shop around, and found out later that I could have gotten it for about half of what I paid. Of course, I bought the book at Cody's in Berkeley, which is not a chain, and therefore I can't return it, unless I feel like driving six hours back to the Bay Area, at which point I'll have paid what I would have saved anyway, in fuel costs.

But all of that is really tangential (surprise) to today's post, in which I want to explore the reasons why I always feel compelled to buy books instead of borrow them. Borrowing would really save me a lot of money, after all... but then I wouldn't be able to write cryptic notes in the margins of the books I read, and I love writing notes!

"Well," I can hear someone pedantically saying, "why not buy the books used, at a discount?" And I say in return: Because I can't stand it when someone else has marked up a book ahead of me with their cryptic notes--and they usually mark passages that are completely unremarkable to me, and then I get all flustered and annoyed trying to figure out why they marked that passage in the first place. Or, they use some ugly highlighter color, and don't even try to keep a straight line--like in a book by Descartes I had to read for a philosophy class, in college. I would frown every time I got to a page with the sickly puke-green highlights that squiggled aimlessly through paragraphs like a drunken snake.

By the way, you know how they say, "Don't judge a book by its cover"? I actually do that all the time. In fact, if a book is published by two different publishers, I will get the copy with the cover (and text font) that I like better, even if it costs more.

I particularly like covers on books published by Vintage Press.

Wow. I never really thought I was so... anal.

Alright, so I'm anal. But in my defense (if it can be called defense), I'm not so anal about things other than books. And that's good, right?

Well, hmm. Actually, I do kind of wish I was more anal about, say, paperwork and filing. Or cleaning. Maybe even learning to cook, or being less single.

But then, if I were anal about all those things, I would probably be pretty good at them, and have nothing left to make fun of myself about! And that would be bad for you, my legions of fans. (See how I am always thinking of you?)

Although I guess I could make fun of myself for being anal.

Which I guess I kind of have, in this post. I think.